


A Study in Demigods

by fyrefly



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Demigods, Gen, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Percy Jackson verse - Sherlock Characters, Seriously God parents explain things far too well
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-07-17
Updated: 2012-07-17
Packaged: 2017-11-10 05:12:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/462557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fyrefly/pseuds/fyrefly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Consulting Detective.  Army Doctor.  Some individuals are simply born exceptional.  But when the two realize that there is more to their companion's ability than meets the eye, they are set on a path that will take them on a journey that they never imagined...</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Study in Demigods

It was a universal truth that no one on this earth knew more about Sherlock Holmes than John Watson.  Ask anyone.  Ask Mrs. Hudson, DI Lestrade, Mike Stamford, even his own brother.  Where other people had a vague impression of “mad insufferable sociopathic genius,” John filled in the outlines with details about violin playing and how he took his tea.  Bad telly, quitting cigarettes, heartbreak.  One would think between the heads in the fridge and the endless run of “experiments” conducted both on and around him there was nothing left that Sherlock could do to surprise the long-suffering doctor.

Well, it’s a bit hypocritical to be irritated at your best friend keeping a secret when it turns out you’re keeping one just as big, isn’t it?

It was an ordinary June evening.  They were both stuffed full of post-case Chinese food, content and rested after a chase through a crowded farmer’s market on an unseasonably warm afternoon.  Now that the heat had broken Sherlock had shrugged back into his overcoat, despite the fact that he’d nearly sweat clean through the thing earlier.

“Just carry that, will you?  You’ll get heat stroke,” John hadn’t even left with a coat and he’d already rolled up his sleeves and unbuttoned half the buttons on his shirt.  Two passing women giggled to each other.

“I’m fine.”

“Like hell you are.  I’m not holding your hair when you throw up.”

“Quiet, John.”

“No, I will _not_ be quiet.  You insist on wearing that thing day in and day out and it’s going to be the death of y-” he was silenced with a hand over his mouth.

He flinched at the sensation of warm breath against his ear.  “I said quiet.  Look down that alley.  What do you see?”

The doctor squinted past the shadows.  Opened his mouth to speak.  Looked again.  A sensation like a stone settled in his stomach.

“A, um…mugging.  Kid and her older brother and that guy has a knife, looks like.  You could phone the police.  I’ve got my gun, I can break it up.”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow and diverted his attention to the alley.  The man was huge, hulking, grasping a long knife.  No, two knives.  The girl’s brother had pushed her behind him, against the alley wall and was shielding her with her body as they slowly tried their best to inch away.

He fixed his flatmate with an intense stare. “He’s armed and your solution is to send me away while you take care of the immediate problem?  Of course you have your gun, that’s not a problem but you don’t want me involved.  You’d risk displaying an illegal firearm in public to _not_ have me involved when the two of us could easily take him on.  Why?  Perhaps you think it’s so… _misty_ in that alleyway I can’t see what’s _really_ going on?”

John swallowed.  Hazel eyes met blue-gray.  A long, stretching moment where they both understood what the other could not risk saying and marveled at the colossal impossibility of it all.  Though what was one more fantastic stroke of luck in the grand scheme of their lives?  Finally John took a deep breath and spoke.

“He can’t take care of a Gegenee by himself.  Do you have anything?”

A bronze knife of a somewhat terrifying length materialized from the sleeve of the very greatcoat John had been cursing the existence of a moment ago.  “Do you?”

His shorter companion nodded, pulling the faithful pistol from the waistband of his jeans.

“That’s not going to-” John held up a hand to silence him, then fished in his pocket and retrieved something that looked like a small bronze silencer before quickly screwing it on the end.  “A little present, don’t worry.”

A grin crossed the detective’s face.  “Excellent.  If you can just draw his attention this way I’ll flank him.”

John blinked, “There’s no room, how are you going to get behind without him noticing?”

Sherlock was already moving.  His fingers brushed the red buttonhole on his collar as he turned it up and gave a tug.  Suddenly, he was no longer there.

_Well, that explains a lot…_

Nothing for it.  John steeled his shoulders and stepped into the alley, brandishing his pistol.

“Leave them alone!”

The mugger – the Gegenee – slowly turned.  A sickening smile spread over its face.  “Leave us.  You have no idea what you’re dealing with.”

With each step he took towards it, John could feel the mist becoming easier to see through.  Gods, how long had it been since he’d actually had to look at a proper monster?  More knives were becoming visible under his long jacket.  Knives attached to hands.  Three, four, five…six in all.

He clicked the safety off his gun and pointed it at the creature’s head.  With his other hand he motioned for the children to get behind him.  They weren’t idiots, that was clear.  The moment the Gegenee had shifted his attention to John, their slow inching had all but increased to flat-out run to the mouth of the alleyway where they now stood, gaping at their unassuming rescuer.

“I think you’ll find I do.  Go away or I’ll kill you.”

Several things happened in rapid succession.  John fired.  The bullet, glowing with the dull sheen of celestial bronze thanks to his little modification, embedded itself in the left half of the monster’s chest.  Obviously it was going to take more than one tiny bullet to bring it down; for the moment he had succeeded in little besides enraging the creature.  Said rage was manifested in the monster flat-out charging him, all six armed hands brought to the ready.  John fired off two more shots, trying to back up rapidly before stumbling over a discarded soft drink can and sitting down hard on the asphalt.  The Gegenee roared and pressed his advantage, lunging at John and managing to graze his shoulder with a blade before he could roll away.

As he was pulling his upper four arms back for another strike, the monster suddenly crunched to the ground, blood spurting from a deep gash in his back.  An unseen force grappled with one of the Gegenee’s arms as another deep cut appeared in his neck.  John scrambled to his feet and praying Sherlock was out of the way, emptied the rest of his shots into the monster’s skull.

It twitched, spluttered, and went silent.  Several long moments passed before Sherlock reappeared, dropping to the ground as the corpse dissolved under him and carefully turning the collar of his coat back down.  He looked distastefully at the blood-soaked knife before retrieving a handkerchief from his suit pocket and wiping it down.

“Alright, John?” he asked without looking up.

John stretched his arm out, feeling out the damage from the cut.  _What is with that shoulder?  Couldn’t keep it out of harm’s way in training, either._

“He only just got me.  Stings a little but it’s not poisoned.”

“Good.  We can clean it when we get home.”  He slid the knife back into its sleeve sheath and approached the two children.  The older one appeared to be just reaching manhood with a fine dusting of hair on his chin.  But his clothes were a mess of styles, from the wooly hat pulled down over his ears to the ill-fitting shoes that were clearly too large.  The girl was still in her school uniform, clutching her backpack like a teddy bear.

“Where are you taking her?”

The boy stood up a little straighter.  “She’s my sister and I was-”

“Skip the act satyr, you’ve clearly had no practice.  My friend and I have just killed a Gegenee for you and you think _now_ is the time to be evasive?  First time as a guardian no doubt.  Now are you taking the girl to that Camp of yours directly or are you to rendezvous with another party?”

Said satyr wilted noticeably.  Had his tail not been under a pair of blue jeans it would have been drooping as much as the goat-like ear poking out from under the hat.

“Yes, sir.  Sorry sir.  I’m Ernest, and this is Elizabeth.  There aren’t any other candidates in Europe that are close enough to wait for, so I’m to bring her back immediately.”

John took the opportunity while Sherlock was berating the satyr to kneel down and have a look at a scrape on Elizabeth’s cheek.  “All right there?  I know it’s a bit of a shock but we’re going to help you get somewhere safe, okay?”

She managed a small smile but didn’t let up the squeeze on her bag.  “Okay.  Little tired.  We’ve been running for ages but that man wouldn’t stop following us.  He’s been at school for months!  I thought he was just the new man come to take care of the boiler.”

Sherlock glanced at her.  “That’s to be expected.  Monsters crowd around once you start to smell,”

The girl looked horrified until John quickly amended, “What he means is once a half-blood gets old enough you start smelling tasty to the monsters.  That’s all, nothing bad.”

“Why do they want to eat us?”

“We’re good eating, I suppose.  Don’t worry.  You’re going to learn how to protect yourself.”

Sherlock sniffed in derision but for once had the sense to hold his tongue.  He was far more interested in expressing exactly how near Ernest had come to utterly failing his mission.

“So you came in as an exchange student, textbook really, and then took her out _in broad daylight?_ ”

“He was coming after her!”

“Which is why you get somewhere nice and crowded and _hide until he passes_!  You don’t let yourself be herded to and fro across London like a pair of _goats_.”  Ernest frowned at that.

“And does she have a passport?  How are you travelling to New York?”

“I gotta lot of cash,” Ernest produced a rather alarming pile of crisp fifty-pound notes. “I thought  maybe…”

“You thought you could bribe a customs official?!  What do they- No. _No_.  I’m not wasting my time.” He pulled out his mobile and dialed.

“Um…are we in trouble?” Elizabeth whispered to John, looking at Sherlock uneasily.

“No, no, nothing like that.  He’s just a bit of an ars- a grumpy person.  That’s all.”

Meanwhile Sherlock was pacing as he waited for his call to connect.

“Yes, Mycroft.  No I don’t care who you’re on your way to meet.  This can’t wait.  Our cousin is in town with her bodyguard and needs help getting to Long Island.”

There was a long pause, during which Sherlock repeated the message then tersely gave their location.  Finally he hung up.

“He’s on his way,”

Ernest was gaping.  “ _Mycroft?_ As in, _Mycroft Holmes?_ ”

Holmes the Younger frowned at the satyr while John just looked confused.  “Is he famous in America or something?  What has he gone and done now?”

Sherlock snorted while Ernest quickly continued, “Of course he is!  He’s – oh but that means you’re Sherlock!”

At that moment a sleek black car pulled up to the curb in front of them and saved the young demigod and her guardian the scathing retort that was ready and waiting on Sherlock’s tongue.  Surprisingly enough, the back door opened and The Man Himself deigned to step out of the car and look them over, fingers gripped tightly around the ever-present umbrella.

He raised an eyebrow at his younger brother, glancing meaningfully at John.  “Sherlock?  Was this…” he stopped mid-sentence as his eye caught the silencer.  A smile worthy of the Cheshire Cat bloomed across his face.  “Ah, John.  You really are full of surprises, aren’t you?”

The elder Holmes brushed carelessly past them, swinging the umbrella in a deliberate manner before stopping over the spot where the monster had been killed.  He studied something that evidently was quite clear to him before addressing his brother.

“Gegenee?”

“Obviously.”

“Interesting.  I’ll send word to our contacts.  Satyr, are there any other young ones we ought to be aware of?”

“None I’m supposed to meet with right now sir but they just told me about mine.  Dionysus doesn’t like questions.”  Ernest was gaping at him, clearly caught in the throes of hero worship.

Mycroft pursed his lips. “Most unfortunate for him.  We may have to pay our _dear_ cousin a visit.”

Sherlock scowled. “Don’t start, Mycroft.  You know every time you’re due for a visit to Long Island I’m sent because you’re busy with the Queen or something equally ridiculous.”

“That was _one time_ , Sherlock.”

“One time too many.  John, we’re leaving.”

The doctor had been trying to keep track of this rapid back-and-forth exchange between the two brothers but, as per usual, found himself with little more than a headache.  Their referrals to past events he had never heard of were not helping, though he had managed to form the impression that Mycroft Holmes’ influence extended far beyond the sphere of the British Government.  Were the Gods not even safe from his meddling?

It was not a comforting thought.  Offering a tight smile at the elder Holmes and a warm nod accompanied by a shoulder squeeze to Elizabeth, he turned and followed his flatmate home.

**Author's Note:**

> Well hurrah for my first Sherlock fic! This is an idea I've had floating around in my head for a bit, to play with how the Sherlock characters would change in the Percy Jackson universe of Greek mythology. So far it's quite fun to play around in. I will confess that knowing people enjoy what I write does spur me to write more, even if it's due to sheer guilt. I would greatly appreciate any feedback or encouragement any of you could spare the time to write. And who knows if you give me some fun ideas they might show up later. :)
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
